Fokker - The Great War
As World War I began in August 1914, Fokker had to decide if he would stay in Germany or return home to the Netherlands. He had tried selling airplanes to all the European countries, but only Germany had bought any. The Netherlands was able to stay out of the war for the reason that the Central Powers and the Allies both thought it was in their best interest not to force Holland into war. Since the Netherlands had declared itself neutral, Fokker decided to stay in Germany. The Germans quickly deluged his factory with orders for observation planes.
In the first months of the war, as observation planes proved their abilities and value to the military, it became the objective of each side to shoot down each other's planes. These early efforts were not very effective until the French pilot Roland Garros had a forward firing machine gun mounted to his plane and added special plates on his propeller to deflect bullets. The Germans were unable to figure out his secret, and for several weeks in April 1915, the French enjoyed air superiority. Soon, however, Garros's plane was forced down into German territory. The plane was sent to Fokker with orders to replicate the deflector blade system in the next airplane he built. Finding the system too rudimentary, Fokker advanced the concept and created a system that synchronized the machine gun's firing with its propeller rotation. He mounted the system onto a monoplane whose design was based on the Morane-Saulnier Parasol, an early French monoplane. v The first true fighters to appear in World War I were the Fokker Eindecker series of monoplanes that caused a revolution in the concepts of the way in which a fighting airplane could be employed. The Eindecker was not particularly fast or maneuverable, but it was the first aircraft to effectively employ a fixed, forward-firing machine gun that was synchronized with the engine so that the bullets passed between the blades of the revolving propeller. The gun was aimed by aiming the entire airplane. This new flying weapon entered combat service in the summer of 1915. Credit for the invention of the synchronized machine gun is a matter of debate among aviation historians, but there is no doubt that the Fokker Eindeckers were the first aircraft to employ this concept in an effective operational sense. Anthony Fokker's version of the invention of the synchronized machine gun and its early use are contained in his autobiography.
Barely a week after Garros's airplane was captured, the Fokker E.III Eindecker debuted at a demonstration at the Fokker factory. Despite being impressed by their viewing, German officers wanted the plane to perform successfully before they ordered it. Fokker took his prototype to the front and after several days of patrols, he came upon a French Cauldron. As he pointed the Eindecker at the French airplane, aimed and prepared to fire, Fokker suddenly realized he did not want to kill anyone and returned to the airfield without having fired a shot. Orders were placed for the plane, but the first airplane did not arrive from the factory until mid-summer of 1915.
The German ace pilot Max Immelman had his, and the Eindecker's, first victory on August 1. From August 1915 until April 1916, the Allied air forces were helpless against the Eindecker. The results achieved with the Fokkers were spectacular, and the months during which these aircraft reigned supreme are often referred to as the era of the "Fokker Scourge"; Allied aircraft were sometimes called "Fokker Fodder." German pilots Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann became famous for flying this type of aircraft; Immelmann was killed in one as the result of structural failure in the air. It has never been established whether this failure was caused by enemy gunfire or a design defect.
The Germans gained four victories for every one Eindecker loss. And the Germans were careful to maintain their advantage, not allowing the plane to pass over lines where it might be shot down and captured. The plane was credited with the German victory at Verdun, as well as a temporary halt in British strategic bombing. Not until April 1916 did a plane fall into Allied hands. Within weeks, two planes were debuted that regained air superiority for the Allies: the French Nieuport 11 and the British Sopwith Strutter.
Realizing Fokker's potential, the German government naturalized him in 1916 and forbade him to leave the country. For the rest of the war, he continued designing some of the most dangerous combat airplanes of the war, including the Dr.1 Dreidecker (made famous by Manfred von Richtofen, the "Red Baron") and the D.VII, the first airplane specifically designed for aerial combat. The Fokker Dr.-1 was a manifestation of a design phenomenon that swept the aircraft industry in the period 1917-18. During that time, no less than 34 triplane prototypes were constructed and test-flown in Germany. Other triplane prototypes were designed and tested by countries of the Allied Powers. The radical departure of the Fokker Dr.-1 structure from contemporary aircraft design concepts was made possible by the use of wing airfoil sections much thicker than usual at the time. When the war ended, the D.VII was the only weapon the Treaty of Versailles specifically ordered to be destroyed.
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